PUBG just launched a new collaboration with the Premier League, the UK's… well, “premier” football league (or soccer, or whatever you wanna call it). The collaboration brings Korean football star “Sonny” Heung-Min Son on board as both a cosmetic skin and as a real-life autographed PUBG level 3 helmet that you can win as part of an in-game event.
It also brings about a new limited-time game mode called Futsal Mode. Part of PUBG Labs, the part of PUBG where the developers get wild with new ideas, Futsal Mode has players basically play soccer for the chance to turn into Sonny.
The rules are fairly straightforward. Two teams of four play two, five-minute halves. The objective is to put the ball in the other team's goal to score points. The team with the highest score after 10 minutes wins the game, with a three-minute overtime if the score is tied.
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The field consists of a Buff Zone, where players can acquire power-ups and weapons (limited to melee weapons and a sawed-off shotgun), as well as a Penalty Zone where the goal is located and where players respawn if they're killed. There's also a shield that one player can equip to become the goalie, and if they move out of the Penalty zone they'll drop the shield for someone else to pick up.
Controlling the ball is a lot like Rocket League in that you basically just run with it to guide it to where you want to go. Charging at the ball while it's standing still either launches a shot or a long-range pass to another player. There are no fouls, offsides, or handling fouls–just do whatever it takes to get the ball into the other team's goal.
Here’s where things get weird: the player who scores the most goals in a match will at some point transform into Heung-Min Son (female characters will just get his uniform, but male characters also get his face and hair). Although strange, this is a good thing because Sonny benefits "from a full boost with an extra speed increase until the end of the match.”
In other weird news, PUBG is getting an animated Netflix series courtesy of Adi Shankar, the showrunner for Castlevania. No word yet on whether or not Sonny is going to be in that too.
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